I'm shook

Every Monday morning, after I pack Xena's snack box, I stick a little sticky note on it. It usually features a random drawing with a speech bubble wishing her luck for a test, or just to say hello from mommy.

(Hey, don't judge. I drew these at 6 in the morning, ok?)

She really looks forward to my notes and from what she tells me, some of her classmates do too. She diligently brings the notes back and gives me constructive feedback on whether the drawings were cute or not, and what I can do to improve them. Sometimes she asks me to explain things, like what the motion lines that I sometimes draw around the arms and legs of the characters indicate. 

Yesterday, I was looking through one of her classroom workbooks that the teacher had sent back. She had to write three words ending with -ook, and draw a picture to show one of them. I was so amused (and impressed) to see that though she could have easily drawn 'cook' or 'book', she chose to go off the beaten track and drew 'shook' using the motion lines we had discussed.

Takes right after her dad, I can see.

Daily report

Xena has completed a month of primary school. Though we have all settled into our new daily routines, the one thing that's different every day is the hilarious report I get when she gets back from school.

***

Day 1
Me - How was the first day of school? Did you find your way around easily?

Xena - Yes. But Mama, the toilet tap is sooooo tight I couldn't open it and then I waited and waited till another girl came and I asked her to open it for me.

Day 2
Me - Did you manage to open the tap today?

Xena - Mama, I couldn't even find the toilet today! And when I did, it didn't have the lights on and anyway I can't open the tap because it's too tight and then the bell rang so I have decided I'll pee only at home.

Me - !!!!!!

***

Day 1

Me - So who are the kids sitting around you in class?

Xena - There is this boy called Aidan. He's very mean. I asked him to move his leg so I could get my bag, but he said go from the other side. So mean. I don't like him at all.

Day 2

Me - Who's your best friend in class?

Xena - Aidan.

Me - Eh? I thought you said he was very mean.

Xena - No, actually he's a little bit mean but actually he's not mean at all. He's my best friend.

Day 3

Me (reading the 'About me' section in her workbook that she has filled) - So your best friend is now Esther?

Xena - No, she's not. Actually we don't know each other.

Me - Huh? Then why did you write her name as your best friend??

Xena - Because she's VERY cute. Like a babyyy. She's soooo tiny and jumpy and cuuuute!

***

Me (trying to make sense of all the books and materials and timetable) - So this is your art file?

Xena - No Mama, this is the art folder, not the art file. The art file is separate. And there is an art bag also. I don't know if it is in the classroom or my locker [goodness she has a locker!] or with my teacher or at home. It's somewhere.

Me - It's somewhere??

Xena (confidently) - Yes.

***

Xena - Mama, the one-eyed teacher in my school is very scary. 

Me (I'm thinking mad-eye Moody) - The one-eyed teacher??

Xena - Oh Mama, not the ONE-EYED teacher! The ONE-I teacher. One Integrity! (The sections have names like Honesty, Integrity, etc.)

Me - Oh!

***

Week 1, day 5

Me - So you must have made some friends in class by now?

Xena - Yes.

Me - Who are your closest friends?

Xena - *rattles off seven names*

Me - Wow, that's a lot of friends for the first week. And do you know any other children's names?

Xena - Yes.

Me - How many names do you know?

Xena - Thirty.

Me - You know all thirty kids' names?

Xena - Yes.

Me - Are you sure?

Xena - Yes. I can write it all down, Mama. Believe me. [Takes a sheet of paper and writes down thirty names]

Me (stumped) - Very good...

Week 2, day 5

Xena - Mama, I wish I was in house XYZ. Most of my friends are in XYZ.

Me - Hmm... and who is in your house?

Xena - *rattles off several classmates' names*

Me - Okay...

Xena - Do you want me to write down everyone's names and houses? I can do it. Believe me, Mama.

Me - Oh, I believe you.

***

Xena - Oh Mama, we had four periods of PAL (Programme for Active Learning -- a non-academic section of the curriculum) today. It was ALL morning. I am SO tired.

Me - Wow. And what did you do in the four periods of PAL?

Xena - I can't remember...

***

Xena - Mama, can I have a dollar?

Me - Why?

Xena - There is a pencil with a fan attached to it, in the bookshop. I really like it. Can I buy it?

Me - You'll be able to get it by yourself?

Xena - Yes.

Me - And you will calculate and get the correct change back?

Xena - Yes.

Me - Okay. Here's a dollar. I want the full accounts tomorrow.

Next day...

Me - So did you buy the pencil?

Xena - No, my friend had bought it yesterday and she said it's not very good. So I bought a compass instead.

Me - You bought a compass??

Xena - Yes.

Me - Why?

Xena - I wanted to play with it. To find the direction.

Me - I already have a compass you can play with.

Xena - Oh...

Me - Okay, next time please ask me before you buy anything.

Xena - Ok. Mama, it's soooo fun to buy things at the bookshop! I think I will buy something every day!

Me - No, you will not.

***

Xena - Mama, can I wear a black hairband and a ponytail to school every day?

Me - Really? Why suddenly?

Xena - Just like that.

Me - Hmmm... let me guess. Does one of your friends wear it like that and you like it?

Xena (stumped at how mommy knows) - Yes...

Me - Well, your hair is different. I need to 'lock' the top towards the side before tying the back. If you wear a hairband and a ponytail, it won't stay neat till the end of school.

Xena - No, Mama, it will!

Me - Okay, let's try it out on a weekend and see how it holds up?

Xena - Okay.

We try it out on a Saturday morning. Two hours later...

Xena (looking at herself in the mirror) - It's very messy, Mama... the front hair is coming out everywhere... looks very jungli...

Me (resisting the urge to say 'I told you so') - Yes. Do you still want to do it for school?

Xena - No.

***

Xena - Mama, next week we will be skipping rope in PE class. Mr H (coach) has said -- if you know how to skip, then skip.

Me - And if you don't know how to skip?

Xena - Then you just skip it! HA HA HA!

Me - Ha ha! That's a good one. You should tell your coach this joke. That will make him laugh.

Xena (seriously) - Mama, Mr H doesn't laugh.

Me (seriously) - He doesn't?

Xena - No. And he only has two voices -- loud voice and angry voice. Sometimes we don't know which is which.

***

Week 2, day 1

Xena - Mama, I am very sad today.

Me - Why?

Xena - Because I am not the class monitor.

Me - That's okay. Everyone can't be the class monitor, right?

Xena - Yeah...

Week 3, day 1

Xena - Mama, I am the assistant group leader! YAY!

Me - Wow. Well done! What group is this?

Xena - So each class has different groups, based on the rows of seats.

Me - Oh ok. So what do you need to do as the assistant group leader?

Xena - Nothing.

Me - What do you mean?

Xena - Austin is our group leader. He has to collect the workbooks from our group and give it to the teacher.

Me - And you're his assistant?

Xena - Yes.

Me - Okay. And what do you need to do as the assistant group leader?

Xena - Nothing.

Week 3, day 5

Xena - MAMA, AUSTIN DIDN'T COME TO SCHOOL TODAY, YAY!

Me - Huh?

Xena - I got to collect the workbooks from everyone! YAY!

***

Routine stuff

Our lives have changed. 

Drastically. 

We need sleeeeeep. 

Okay, it's not that bad. Now. 

So Xena started primary school this year. When we signed her up for the school bus and were informed that it would come to fetch her at the unholy hour of 6.45 am, we knew mornings were going to become extremely happening. 

Viv and I decided that we'd start by waking up at 5.45. I'd immediately get started on packing two snackboxes for her, and he'd focus on getting her ready. We had big plans of her having breakfast before leaving, but.. what were we thinking? A child who takes 40 minutes to finish a cup of milk will have breakfast at 6 am? HA HA HA. HA. So we settled on a 3/4-cup of milk or smoothie or some such liquid, which she can finish with some coaxing in about 20 minutes. 

6.20 am is my cue to do her hair. Last year, she said she wanted to cut her long hair so it would be easier to get ready for school in the mornings. In fact, she was quite excited about it, so I had to pretend to be excited too. However, towards the end of December, she changed her mind. PHEW! (I love her long hair and I was so delighted that she changed her mind without me having to do anything.) When she was in preschool, I used to do all sorts of funky hairstyles for her. Of course, now that she's a school-going young lady, we can't put bells and rainbows and we need to stick to black rubber bands, but I still try to do something out of the ordinary. 

Food has become the centrepiece of this chaos. Her preschool used to provide her with lunch, and it was the most amazing menu ever. The sheer variety of the food was mind-boggling. Each dish featured only once in a month, and it was all super healthy stuff -- brown rice, vegetables, eggs, etc. And everything was cooked using herbs grown in the school garden. 

Now that I have to pack two snackboxes for her early in the morning, and then make lunch for her to have when she gets home, I really really miss her preschool days. ('Feeding Xena' had always been a shared project between her teachers and us, and now it's not.) I loathe the idea of sending biscuits and other random junk (at the very least the stuff have to be baked by me), so I've been compiling a list of nutritious and filling items that I can quickly make in the morning, that would last the test of time, and that most importantly, she'd eat. So far, it's been a fun journey asking friends for their lists, googling for recipes, testing them out to see if they will last the many hours in the snackbox, and tweaking them to make them healthier. At some point, I'll do a post on all that, complete with recipes. 

It's now week 4, and I am way past the exhaustion I had felt in week 1. I wake up, brush, cook and pack her food, do her hair and send her off by 6.35 and then I make breakfast for Viv and me. Once he's off to work, I head to the gym before I shower and start work. It's a lot to process and implement so early in the morning. The first week I felt really sleepy while working. I'd yawn so widely that tears would come out of my eyes. At one point, I felt like my head was just going to thunk itself on the keyboard and stay there. It didn't help that I didn't have any colleagues to chat with and drive my  sleep away. Coffee came to my rescue that week. Since I don't normally drink coffee, it REALLY kept me awake. But of course, that was not going to be the long-term solution. We decided to do away with late-night Netflix sessions, and go to sleep by 10 pm. So far I'm mostly able to keep to it, but Viv works late on some nights. E.g. last night he worked till 4 a.m. (I seriously don't know how he can function on such little sleep.)  

Two of the mornings, right after we sent her off, both of us actually decided to take a power nap after breakfast just to stay functioning. It helped a lot, but again, it can't be the long-term solution. 

Xena is coping well with the funny hours because I have still retained her afternoon nap, so she gets a good amount of sleep overall. I get a lot of envy on that front from many mommy friends about how very lucky I am that she naps in the afternoons and how their kids dropped their naps at the age of two, BUT HEY I WORKED HARD TO KEEP THE NAPS GOING, OKAY? OKAY! 

All right, it's time to share some pictures! 

This was taken on day 1 of school, when she had not received her name tag yet and was wearing a temporary one. She kinda floats about in her uniform a bit, even though we bought the smallest possible size. The shopkeeper at the uniform shop looked shocked when I picked up the smallest set and asked her if she had anything smaller than that. The lady behind me in the queue politely asked, "Just how tiny is your child?"

The Physical Education uniform fits her much better.

Last but not the least, here's a poster she had made as her last preschool project. The topic was 'Big school' and the kids were asked to do whatever they wanted. She drew all the big changes that she would experience in Big School. 

It's been all this and more!

V is for vocals

"You know, when your sister was a baby, her cry was so melodious. OooOOooO." My Mom said.

"Wow. What about me? Was my cry melodious too?" I grinned.

"Errr...." was her reply.

Fine. Apparently it was more "WAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" than my sister's gentle "OooOOooO".

Fine.

So I didn't have a great start to my vocals journey. But unlike my OooOOooO-ing sister, I have loved music and singing ever since I was a kid. Mom used to sing on radio when she was young, so it was a dream for me to do that some day. Except that my music teachers at my primary school didn't quite think so. The male teacher was still okay, but the new female teacher couldn't stand me. Once, we all auditioned for a singing part for the school function. I'd barely sung 3 words when she put up her hand and dismissed me with a pained expression. Her final pick was this girl called Desdemona (parents must be fans of Shakespeare, methinks). Fine.

A few months later, we had a chance to do a musical play on radio, and the story was that of the rabbit who fooled the lion into thinking that there was another lion in the well. And guess who was chosen to sing the parts of the rabbit? MOI. Not Desdemona. MOIHAHAHAHA! I still remember the song. It was very jingle-like and it went, "Is bhayaanak sher se humko pana hai chhutkara, is bhayaanak!" Radio dream? Check. Of course, my mom sang 'Raina beeti jaaye' while I sang 'Is bhayaanak' but still.

That was the high point of my 'musical career'. The song never left my head. Even when we had some random minister or school inspector visiting the school and we had to wear saris and sing, "Aap aaye chaman mein vasant aa gaya, kokila gaa uthi swaagatam swaagatam", in my head, I'd be looking at him and singing, "Is bhayaanak sher se humko pana hai chhutkara, is bhayaanak!"

In high school, I did sing for inter-house and inter-school competitions, but my real exposure to singing came during my university days when I successfully auditioned for NTU's Indian musical band. For four years, I worked with highly trained people and learnt a lot. Of course, they were very supportive and tried their hardest to camouflage the shortcomings of this amateur singer. Some songs were too high-pitched for me, and nobody could hear me sing. Well, dogs, perhaps. And they literally used to lower the scale for me. (I know some of them are reading this, smiling and nodding their heads. Hi, guys!)

Then in 2005, I had a chance to audition for Antakshari. Here in Singapore, in front of Annu Kapoor. It was just the first round, so all he was asking people to do was just sing the mukhda of one song and go. He asked me the same and I started with 'Mera kuchh saamaan'. I was about to bow and leave after my mukhda but he asked me to sing another one. So I sang, 'Tujhse naaraaz nahin zindagi'. Surprise surprise, he asked for another one. So I sang, 'Tere bina zindagi se'. He seemed lost in thought for a while, and then said, "You like Gulzar songs, don't you?" I nodded. Then he said something like he didn't think I'd do justice to 'energy wale songs' and dismissed me. I didn't make it to the next round. Obviously. See, how I planted the axe firmly on my foot because of my dukhi aatma songs?

Fast-forward 10 years. Music is still forever playing in our home. I'm either listening to songs or singing them. All the time. So Xena has been exposed to it since a very young age. When she started talking, I couldn't wait for her to start singing. I'd sing the opening lines of a song and let her provide the ending word. Of course, sometimes she'd just say 'POOP' after my enthusiastic "It's the time to..?"   Of course now, she's a lot better and sings along with me. For some strange reason (and to my delight), she seems to like old songs. Mera naam Chin Chin Choo, Kajra Muhabbat Wala, etc.

Last year, I briefly entertained the idea of finally taking formal music lessons. But then the idea of learning Mandarin appealed to me more, and I only had space for one class in my water-tight schedule.

Besides, why stress myself with formal lessons when I'm having so much fun just singing, especially with my new singing partner Xena?

E is for Engineering

"Oh, you studied Engineering??"

Many people express their surprise at the fact that once upon a time, I used to be an engineer. And the question that usually follows is - "But why??"

Here's why.

I don't know what the situation is now, but when and where I grew up, there were only two ways to make your family proud. Become a doctor or become an engineer. And for heaven's sake, don't go into Arts or Commerce. This was especially important if your parents didn't have any sons. Strangely, no one explicitly said this to me or my friends. We were just wired to think like that. I don't have any memory of my parents expressing any desire to have me take up Medicine or Engineering. But then neither do I have any memory of them asking me what I wanted to do. In fact, I don't think I wanted to do anything. It just seemed like the natural course of life -- Medicine or Engineering. (I did like writing and poetry, but it was laughable to think of that as a career choice. That was a hobby. It could not be a vocation.)

I loved both Mathematics and Biology, so I sat for both entrance exams. I didn't really care which one I got through, as long as I got through at least one. And then the SIA-NOL scholarship came through. Again, I don't know what the situation is now, but back then, if you got a scholarship to study in a phoren country, you didn't think. You packed your bags right away. So once again, I didn't care much. It was an Engineering degree, I was going to be abroad. It couldn't be a prouder moment for my parents.

The realisation trickled in during my Engineering studies, and strengthened during my first three months of working as an engineer. The realisation  that I couldn't do it for life. I'd grown up thinking that nobody really loves their job, but you just gotta do it to stay alive. But I was daring myself to break that notion. Perhaps living in Singapore, away from the pre-wired notions did something to my head. I actually started believing that I could get away with a non-engineering job. Something that I would enjoy, something I would look forward to every morning.

And so I did. After many hard knocks, I bulldozed into the publishing industry. But the engineering skeleton in my closet kept rattling, especially at job interviews. So I got myself a Master's degree in Mass Communication and finally laid that skeleton to rest.

Of course, it does come back every now and then. When someone expects me to know the answer to a technical question or know why an electronic device is not working. Then I just toss my head and proudly give them the one solution to every engineering-related problem in the world. REBOOT. It works every single time, okay?! Okay. (If you don't believe me, ask Viv. He has used this advice of mine on several occasions and reported resounding success.)

Jokes apart, every now and then, someone or the other asks me if my Engineering degree was a 'mistake' or a 'waste of time'. And I shake my head with certainty and confidence. It may have been covered up by a gazillion other things, but it did contribute to making me the person I am today. The four years of studying Engineering has given me many things, all of which are irreplaceable:

- Though I have more of a creative mind than a mathematical one, Engineering did make me a little more analytical than I used to be, and that helped me tremendously in my all jobs. Sometimes the creative space can get too fluid and vague, and you need to break things down mathematically to get the job done. The same skills have also tremendously helped me manage my crazy new portfolio - motherhood.

- It was a lesson in humility. It taught me the important lesson that you can be a superstar in your little pond back home, but once thrust into the ocean, you're just a speck. It was a disillusioning eye-opener for me not to enjoy my studies the way I did in school - effortlessly, devotedly, easily. It was frightening for me not to be able to cope with my professors' accents, follow the rapid dialogues in English movies that I was suddenly exposed to, or speak in English as fast as my classmates from Delhi/Mumbai/Chennai/Bangalore/Calcutta did.

- It gave me the opportunity to enjoy my non-engineering subjects a lot more, subjects that were compulsory even for the Engineering course - Economics, Law, Communication Studies, French. I aced them all and that further cemented the rapidly growing suspicion that maybe I was not for Engineering and Engineering was not for me.

- Because I didn't enjoy my studies that much, I started working harder on my hobbies. I got the editor position of the school of EEE magazine, and had the chance to sing on stage in a university band. Back in school, holding that dilapidated and moody microphone, singing in the inter-house music competition without any accompaniments, I'd have never imagined in my wildest dreams that one day I'd be singing 'Ishq bina' in front of 1000 people in the Main Lecture Theatre of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

- It gave me a gigantic network of friends (seniors, classmates, juniors) called the IG (Indian Gang) who underwent the same drills during ragging (or as our seniors called it - 'orientation'), who share the same jokes that go two decades back, and whom you can suddenly bump into in any part of the world and start talking to, as if you were just continuing an old conversation. A huge shout-out to any IGs reading this! (I know some of you are silent readers. Out with it now.)

- Big bonus: It made me meet Viv. We'd have had no chance of meeting if we were in India.

- And lastly, it confirmed for me what I didn't want. Sometimes you think you want something, and only when you get it do you realise that you actually don't. It opened my eyes to a different world. A world where you didn't have to be what you were supposed to be, or asked to be. You could just be what you wanted to be.

Any other engineers amongst the bar's bewdas, who are not working as engineers? Holler! 

C is for CBSE board exams

Long long time ago, my dad got posted to a very tiny town. I joined Std IX of the only English medium school there. There used to be a big board hung above the door leading to the principal's office. It had the name of the school toppers, one column each for Std VIII, the CBSE 10th board exams (GCE 'O' level equivalent) and the 12th board exams (GCE 'A' level equivalent). It was a very simple school in a very small town, so the board was a very basic one too. Nothing fancy, and the names used to be hand-written by one of the teachers.

But it held great significance for me. It was my dart board. I wanted my name up there in the second column. The CBSE 10th board exams. And I was crazy nerdy to a level that not only did I want to beat all the previous years' scores, I wanted nobody to beat mine. For at least a decade.

So when the board finally did feature my name, I was thrilled to bits. And because it was a really tiny town, 93.6% was a big deal. I was in the papers and on radio as well. (I still remembered the radio guy asking me what was my secret and I told him that I listened to music on my walkman while I studied. I was trying hard not to laugh when he said, "Toh shrotagan, yeh hai Sayesha ka raaz, walkman ke saath padhai.")

So part I of my mission was accomplished and for part II, well that would be a long wait. Anyway, many things happened in the next few years, so I couldn't really keep track of that board. I came to Singapore, my dad got posted elsewhere, and my school friends also got scattered all over the world. There was no link with anyone who knew if the board was still being used, and if my record had been broken.

When I first landed in Singapore, I was suddenly reduced to a nobody. I don't know what the system is now, but back then, they used to give about 50 scholarships a year to Indian students. I was just one of the 50. So everyone was a scholar and everyone had great board exam results, and during ragging our seniors ensured that each of us was made to feel very very small. Equally small. Nobody was special. Least of all me, a girl from a small town in India that no one had even heard of.

And I think that might have made me crave to see that board all over again, as a way to remember my past glories. Years passed, and once in a while I'd remember the board and wonder if they still kept that system of hand-writing the toppers' names in this highly digital world.

A few years ago, I got in touch with an old school friend who lives in the US. I asked him if he could pop by the school during his next India visit and check if the board was still there. He said he would but I never really heard back from him and I felt a little silly bothering him again for it.

I got back in touch with another classmate last year and I asked her the same thing. But nothing came out of that. On some levels, I understood. It's a busy life for everyone. When you visit home, you might not really have the time to go back to your school hunting for a board for a friend. So I gave up my search and tried to put my mind to rest. I told myself that the record was probably smashed to smithereens, and the fact that I couldn't get to it was probably better for me.

Some time ago, I got added to my school friends' WhatsApp group. I got back in touch with many of them. And strangely, one of the guys messaged me saying that he needed to tell me he was now an English teacher. We both laughed heartily at that. You see, back in school he used to hate English and I used to help him with his homework every morning at the bicycle stands before the school assembly. He was an English teacher now! I was so happy for him! We started reminiscing about school days and the board came up in our conversation. I told him of my desire to see if it was still there and if someone had broken my record.

The very next day, I was in for an amazing surprise. He had WhatsApp-ed me a photo of the board! He knew someone whose wife was a teacher in that school, so she took a photo and sent it to her husband who sent it to my friend, who then sent it to me. I was blown away. I thanked him and then I thanked him and then I THANKED him again, and I sent him the folded hands emoticon multiple times. He had no idea what he had done for me.

So yes, the board had been alive and functional all these years! Until 2009, when apparently the GPA system kicked in. And I also discovered that my score had stayed unbeaten for 9 years. In the year 2005, she who shall not be named (but, of course, I immediately issued supari for her) broke my record by 0.6%.

Okay, I tried to blur out the names on iPhoto, but it didn't work well, so I used pic collage and put stickers over the names instead. 

9 years. Ahhhh. Just short of the decade dream. Oh well, what can you do? Besides, the joy of seeing that board after almost two decades, and the fact that my friend had made such an effort for me, surpassed everything else.

If this was a perfect story, my record would have been unbeaten forever. But it's not a perfect story. It's a story about imperfect little things, and imperfect little connections that may take their time, but eventually bring us little joys. Imperfect little joys.

Bright and early

So last week I had an early-morning meeting for a potential project. Okay, the meeting was not really that early in the morning, but it was in a land far far away, also known as 'the other end of the island'. I had to get up at 6 am to make it. "So what?" I hear many of you say, "I get up at 5 am every day. Including weekends." I have only one thing to say to you guys. Please make a single file and leave the bar. Ok bye. Jokes aside, I am actually not a not-morning person. Ok, that sounded confusing. I mean, I am a morning person. I don't mind an early start to the day. But by early, I mean get-up-at-7-am kind of early, and not Akshay Kumar's 'If you want me on the Koffee couch, we'll need to shoot at 6 am.' statement to KJ. Anyway, let's get back to the original topic because if I get started on Koffee with Karan, shutting me up will take a few hours.

Since I started working from home, I have stopped setting a wake-up alarm, and started relying on a very different kind of alarm clock - Xena. She's up, we're up. Because there is no alternative. If she's up and we're not, she'll do three reps of TT (toddler tandav) accompanied by four verses of "Good morning ho gaya! Wake up ho jao!" till we wake up. And since she wakes up around 7ish every morning, it works well for me. I work till about 11 pm after she's gone to sleep and manage to get my 8 hours of duty sleep.

So when I had to set at alarm for 6 am for this meeting, it was a sudden and big deal. To get ready and leave the house before Xena and Viv even woke up felt strange. I left all sorts of post-its with tips for him to get her ready for school. (Usually he's in charge of brushing her teeth and shovelling breakfast down her unwilling throat, while I get her, her bag, her snackbox and our breakfast ready). The toughest job for him that morning must have been her hair. Her tropical rainforest hair, to be precise, inherited directly from her mommy. Anyway, I left father and daughter to deal with things and quietly made my way out.

It was a loooong 2-hour journey, involving two buses and a train, and since I don't own a smartphone (by choice), I had plenty of time to reflect and people-watch. Something that I usually don't get time for. And as I watched all the half-sleepy people around me, I was reminded of the time before Xena when I was also a part of this corporate crowd, getting up early, running after the bus in my high heels trying to get the driver's attention, rushing to work, trying to look alert and professional in a super-early-morning videoconference when there was little stopping me from doing an auto-headdesk.

Another phase of my life when I had to wake up really early was when I decided to do a part-time Master's degree in a university which was, again, on the other side of the island. Far away from my home and far away from my workplace. Great. This is what I had done to my life. And it was very very hard to survive on such little sleep. I think that was partly what made me finish it in the not-recommended-at-all three semesters. I just wanted to get it over and done with so I could finally catch some sleep.

The last phase I could think of when early starts were a prerequisite were my school days. 1996-1998 in particular, when my dad was transferred to a tiny place I can only refer to as not a city, not a town, but maybe a... settlement? The local schools ended at Std X. If you wanted to study more, you had to go to the neighbouring settlement. The school bus picked me up at 5:45 am, so I had to wake up at 5 am and get ready. Because if you missed that bus, you pretty much missed school. And this nerd LOVED school. I loved it so much that I can't even remember finding the 5 am wakings-up a torture. The thrill of school and meeting friends and impressing teachers overpowered everything else. But I have to give my dad credit here who had a very strict rule - lights out at 9 pm and no exceptions. And I think that's probably what made the waking up at 5 am easier. I hope I can apply his rule successfully to Xena when she grows up and protests at her current bedtime of 8:30 pm.

The bus ride to school used to be about 2 hours long, and it was fantastic. The bus was completely dilapidated, and it rattled and jumped for most of the trip. But my friends were in there, and my best friend (why don't we have those anymore?) who got on the bus before me used to save me a seat, and we used to play antakshari (till the fateful day when some of the guys in our class threw coins at us as a joke and we didn't talk to them for a week and they had to literally come and beg us not to do that). The bus used to go through a jungle, and there was even a tribal kid who used to board the bus from a tiny hut in the jungle. I realised I had very very happy memories of the morning bus ride, and I barely remembered the waking-up-at-5-am part.

So I started thinking - what is it that makes early starts during school days seem not so bad, but a real torture when we grow up? Is it because we screw up our lifestyles so bad as adults that whatever little sleep we get becomes our life-support, and when we don't get it, we snap? Is it because in the race for other things, the most important ones get sacrificed first -- sleep, water, breakfast, etc.?

Being adult is no fun. Almost all of us have more fun and fonder memories of our childhood than our adulthood. But does that hold true anymore? Even childhood these days doesn't seem as carefree and bindaas as it used to be. Singapore is a stressful place for kids once they start going to school proper. The first national level exams, the much-dreaded PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination), are held when the kids are barely 12. And these exams will pretty much determine what they become in life. I think most of my childhood was spent up on a tree, and the first time I ever got serious about studies was for the Std X (O level) exams. That's when we were expected to stop being 'children' and 'grow up' and 'prove ourselves'. I try and imagine Xena as a 12-year-old studying seriously for the PSLE and it breaks my heart a little bit.

So here's my little wish for her. I hope she has as close a childhood to what I had, and even with the pressures and early starts, truly has a very very good time at school.